Detainee Alleges Abuse En Route to Guantanamo

Washington PostBy Kevin SullivanAugust 3, 2005

Lawyer Told of Torture At Jails in 3 Countries

LONDON,
Aug. 2 -- A 27-year-old Ethiopian man being held at the U.S. military
prison at Guantanamo Bay alleges that interrogators in jails through
which he passed before reaching Cuba repeatedly abused him physically
and psychologically, his attorney said Tuesday.

Benyam Mohammed
alleged that the torture took place in Pakistan, Morocco and
Afghanistan and that he was flown between those countries by American
operatives, according to Clive Stafford Smith, a British human rights
lawyer who said he represents about 40 Guantanamo Bay prisoners.

There
is no known independent verification of the allegations made by
Mohammed, who the lawyer said reached Guantanamo in September.

Following
standard policy, a Pentagon spokesman declined to comment on whether
Mohammed is at Guantanamo, or on the specifics of his claims.

"U.S.
policy requires that all detainees be treated humanely and to the
extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity in accordance
with the principles of the Third Geneva Convention of 1949," Lt. Cmdr.
Flex Plexico, the spokesman, said in an e-mailed statement.

"It
is important to note that al Qaida training manuals emphasize the
tactic of making false abuse allegations," his statement said.

Stafford
Smith said Mohammed's case illustrates the U.S. policy of secretly
sending suspected terrorists to "ghost prisons" in countries that
permit torture. "The mindless hypocrisy of this is what angers the
world," he said.

Under the practice known as "extraordinary
rendition," the CIA transfers terrorism suspects covertly and without
judicial proceedings to third countries. CIA officials have said they
receive pledges that the prisoners will not be tortured in those
countries; other American officials with knowledge of renditions say
that such promises cannot be enforced.

Stafford Smith said the
Ethiopian-born Mohammed, who arrived in Britain as an asylum seeker in
1994, detailed the claims of torture in two three-day interview
sessions with him at Guantanamo in June and July. He said Mohammed, who
has a sister and brother in Alexandria, Va., and a sister in Atlanta,
contacted him this year in a letter delivered by the Red Cross.

Stafford
Smith provided his written summary of his interviews to The Washington
Post by e-mail. Mohammed's allegations were first reported Tuesday in
London's Guardian newspaper.

Stafford Smith said Mohammed left
his home in London's Notting Hill neighborhood in June 2001 and
traveled to Afghanistan. Mohammed told the lawyer that he had become a
Muslim and was trying to kick a drug habit. He said he wanted to see if
Afghanistan's fundamentalist Taliban administration might be able to
help him clean up his life.

The account does not say what
Mohammed did during the U.S.-led war that overthrew the Taliban after
the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But it says that in April 2002 he was in
Karachi, in neighboring Pakistan, and was arrested at the airport there
as he tried to fly back to Britain using a fake passport.

He said
he was questioned in Pakistan by FBI agents, who accused him of being a
top official of al Qaeda and told him they were going to send him to
Jordan. "The Arabs will deal with you," said an agent who called
himself Chuck, according to the account.

Stafford Smith said
Mohammed told him that in July 2002 he was turned over to Americans who
put him on a military plane and flew him not to Jordan, but to Morocco.
There, he said, U.S. officials told him they believed he was an
accomplice of Jose Padilla, who is in U.S. custody in connection with
an alleged plot to set off a radiological weapon known as a dirty bomb
in the United States. Stafford Smith called those allegations "total
nonsense" and said Mohammed denies knowing Padilla.

At a news
conference on June 1, 2004, U.S. Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey
Jr. said Padilla had an accomplice who had refugee status in Britain
and was in custody, but Comey did not name the suspect.

Mohammed
said he spent 18 months in Morocco, where he said he was beaten
repeatedly and cut on his chest and genitals with a scalpel nearly
monthly. "They cut all over my private parts; one of them said, it
would be better just to cut it off, as I would only breed terrorists,"
Mohammed said, according to Stafford Smith's notes.

The lawyer
said he had seen scars on Mohammed's body. "If the U.S. military can
come up with a good explanation of how he got those scars, have at it,"
he said.

In January 2004, Mohammed said, he was flown to
Afghanistan. He told his attorney that he was beaten in a prison there.
Later he was taken to Bagram air base, where he was allowed to see the
Red Cross.

Mohammed said that to stop the torture, he eventually
signed a false confession saying he was Padilla's accomplice, Stafford
Smith said.

Mohammed said that in September, he was transferred
to Guantanamo Bay, where, according to Stafford Smith, he is being held
without charges. Mohammed's remarks to the lawyer do not allege
physical torture there. But he said one interrogator, who said his name
was Matthew, screamed in his ear: "I am GOD here! I can do whatever I
want with you. Don't think you're safe here."